Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Marley
The sound of music booming from the sitting room of my best friend, Atlas, and her very beautiful but no-nonsense Mexican girlfriend, Carmen, had me rolling my eyes from where I stood. People were everywhere, dancing away or shouting over each other in half-heard conversations.
How anyone could hear themselves think over that noise was beyond me.
With my drink in hand, I strolled out of the house to the poolside. It was quieter out here; the only thing biting at me was the cold air. Thank God I still had my jacket on. I had almost left it on the coat rack in the hallway earlier.
I took a sip of the non-alcoholic drink in my hand and stared at the pool, ringed with soft blue and white lights that rippled gently across the water. The contrast between the chaos inside and the stillness out here was a relief I hadn’t realised I needed.
I didn’t know how long I stood there doing absolutely nothing until a familiar voice cut through the quiet.
“There you are.”
I turned to find Atlas making her way towards me. Her curls were slightly flattened from the party, and her burgundy sweater glowed warmly against her pale skin even in the dim light.
“Why aren’t you inside?” she asked, dropping into the chair beside me. “This is supposed to be a party, not a meditation retreat.”
I huffed out a small laugh. “I just needed a little quiet. Your guests are very… enthusiastic.”
“Mine and Carmen’s friends from work,” she explained with a grin.
“They don’t know the meaning of indoor voices.
” She studied my face with the kind of scrutiny that only came from twenty-one years of friendship.
“How are you doing, Mar? Be for real with me, how are you finding Canada, Vancouver..Mapleridge in general?”
I took another sip of my drink, buying myself a second to think.
“It’s okay, the university is good and the city is nice enough. But most days I miss Deutschland*. I miss the familiarity of it all, you know? Knowing how things work without having to figure everything out again.”
She nodded slowly.
We had grown up together in Berlin, practically inseparable since we were seven years old.
She had been the first person I told when I realised I liked girls, the first person I called when I didn’t know how to come out to my parents, the first person who helped me piece together who I was supposed to be.
When she moved to Canada three years ago on a work visa, it felt as devastating as losing a limb.
“I know moving here was the right choice for you,” she said softly. “But I also know it wasn’t easy.”
“Nothing worthwhile ever is,” I replied automatically.
She smiled. “That’s my line.” Her expression grew more serious. “Speaking of worthwhile things… Why aren’t you here with a date tonight? Since it was a total disaster with the one I set you up with, I figured you would’ve found someone else by now.”
I shrugged. “I haven’t met anyone better.”
Atlas raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe you’ve built walls so high no one can get in.”
That landed closer to the truth than I’d like. “Maybe”
“Mar, you know I love you, but I’m going to have to say this,” she said gently. “The truth is, you hate being vulnerable. You analyse everything to death and treat relationships like experiments instead of just… feeling them.”
I stared into my drink, watching the ice cubes clink softly in my glass.
“You know how people are, Atlas. They say one thing and mean another. They promise forever and disappear the second it gets complicated. It’s easier to keep people at arm’s length.
One-night arrangements are easier. It wasn’t like either of us expected anything.
Everyone went home in the morning with no drama. ”
“Is it easier? Or is it just safer?”
The question lingered between us, and I didn’t know how to answer.
“You’ll never know who the right person is if you keep thinking your way out of it,” Atlas continued. “You can’t logic your way into love, Mar. Trust me on this one.”
I looked at her and remembered the contentment in her eyes and the way she glowed when she talked about Carmen.
“Is that how Carmen makes you feel? Like you don’t need to overthink everything?”
“Exactly.” Her smile brightened. “She makes me want to be brave instead of smart. There’s a difference, you know.”
Brave instead of smart, I repeated in my head.
The phrase stuck.
And annoyingly, my mind wandered unbidden to somewhere it had no business drifting.
Dark eyes and a nervous smile. Kelechi.
The way she’d frozen when our fingers brushed over that textbook. The way she’d bitten her lip without realising. How she’d bolted for the shelves as if I had set the floor on fire.
I hadn’t meant to tease her that much.
Okay. Maybe a little.
But there had been something there. Something alive. Something that made me smile every time I replayed the whole thing in my head.
She’d noticed me noticing her, and I could tell by the way she stumbled over her words, the way her cheeks flushed, that beautiful deep red. And when she looked at me, I could tell she was caught between understanding and escaping.
It was… interesting.
Too interesting.
“You’re thinking about someone,” Atlas said.
I blinked. “What?”
“That look.” She pointed at my face. “You only get that look when you’re mentally dissecting a person.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “I don’t know. It’s just someone from class.”
Atlas’s grin widened instantly. “Ah. There it is. ‘Just someone.’ That’s always how it starts.”
“Relax. We’re partners for a project. That’s it.”
“Mhm.” She didn’t sound convinced, and I found myself smiling despite my best efforts.
Atlas’s eyes lit up. “Oh, my God.”
I groaned. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m celebrating that you actually care about someone.”
“I don’t,” I said automatically, then kicked myself internally for saying it.
Atlas just stared at me.
“Okay, fine. I… find her interesting,” I amended.
She laughed. “Marley Hoffmann finding someone interesting is basically a love confession.”
“Please.” I scoffed.
“Tell me about her
I stared at the calm water in front of us.
“Let’s see. She’s quiet, observant, overthinks everything, tries to act put together, but I can see the panic under it. Plus, she’s smart as hell. Stubborn, too.”
Atlas didn’t say anything, which, frankly, was suspicious.
When I looked at her, she was smiling as if she had just solved a puzzle.
“You’re gone,” she said softly.
“I’m not gone.”
She burst out laughing. “Oh, you’re gone gone.”
I rolled my eyes, but the corner of my mouth betrayed me.
And annoyingly, all I could think about was how Kelechi’s face had lit up when I did something as small as opening a car door for her.
Was it possible that no one had ever done something that simple for her?
“She’s… different, though. She’s a good girl. I’ve noticed that she blushes when I look at her too long, and she runs from me but keeps looking back like she doesn’t want to.”
“And?”
“I don’t know.” I exhaled. “I don’t have it all figured out. And I’m pretty sure she’s as straight as a line.”
Atlas grinned and stood, extending a hand towards me.
“That sounds equal parts terrifying and wonderful. But maybe don’t jump to conclusions. And who knows, you might be the exact kind of trouble she needs.”
Or maybe I’m the fire she knows will burn her, and she still can’t stop touching it, I thought.
“Come on, let’s go back inside before Carmen sends a search party. But Mar?”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe this time, don’t think so hard about it. Just see what happens.”
She linked her arm through mine, and we walked slowly back towards the house, the music growing louder with every step.
But my mind remained quiet, stuck on Tuesday afternoon in the library.
Stuck on the way, Kelechi had whispered “Oh” in that breathless voice of hers.
She could be straight, Marley.
The thought lodged itself in my chest in a way I couldn’t ignore.
“So, what questions do you think we should ask the people we’re interviewing?” Kelechi asked.
We were in the same corner spot as last time, except now it was nearly 9 p.m. and we’d been racking our brains for three hours straight.
We’d had classes earlier in the day, and at the end of it, she had walked up to me and said we could meet at the same place at 6 p.m.
The library was quieter now, thinned out as most students had retreated to their dorms or whatever else they had going on.
The overhead lights cast a warmer glow in the evening, and I found myself noticing stupid little details about her — the way she looked when she was concentrating: how she tucked a strand of her braids behind her ear, how she bit the corner of her lip when she was thinking too hard, the slight frown she aimed at her screen like it had personally offended her.
It was a very distracting sight. Very, very distracting.
“I think we need to start simple,” I said, leaning back. “The basic questions, but make them personal. For instance, instead of asking ‘How do you identify?’, we could ask, ‘When did you first realise that the labels people used for you didn’t fit?’”
She nodded, scribbling notes in that neat handwriting of hers. “That’s good. More story-based than mechanical.”
“Exactly. People connect to stories more than just spreadsheets.” I watched her write for a moment, then added, “We should probably ask about their first crushes, too. That’s usually when people start realising their attractions don’t match what everyone expects.”
Her pen stopped moving. “First crushes?”
“Yeah. Like, ‘Tell us about the first person who made your heart race.’ It’s a simple question, but it gets straight to the core of sexual identity without sounding interrogative or academic.”
I noticed the faint flush creeping up her neck.
Interesting.
“That’s… that’s a good angle,” she said, not meeting my eyes as she resumed writing.